* Posts by TonyJ

1595 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Dec 2010

Ad agency boss owned two Ferraris but wouldn't buy a real server

TonyJ

Well...

I was once called to a dead server which was used to run (bare metal) the AD, shares, printer queues, user profiles...well, everything.

This was for an airline. A cash rich middle eastern one.

Anyway, the UK MD had refused to pay for any kind of backup or second HDD to be RAID'ed as he felt the company were trying to rip him off. He had the same attitude to the PSU or a UPS.

There was a brownout that popped the PSU and HDD.

Having explained that everything needed to be rebuilt and if there wasn't a local copy, tough shit.

So once everything was recreated I sat down and his response to the question of "now do you see why we recommended all that resilience?" his answer was "yeah but now it's happened, it won't happen again..."

I have lots more similar stories.

Intern with superuser access 'promoted' himself to CEO

TonyJ

Seems more common than I thought

About 22/23 years ago, I worked for a large manufacturer. They were a Lotus Domino/Notes shop as well as big users of Citrix (the latter being the reason I was there).

One of the young lads on the helpdesk was a bit of a prankster and often got himself into a spot of bother for acting before thinking.

This one particular day, he was called out to one of the HR managers' for some problem on her desktop.

Whilst he was fiddling around with her computer, she went to get a coffee, leaving our intrepid plank alone for a few minutes.

Did I mention his dad also worked for the company at the same site. Not in am IT role, as I recall, but he had email.

He also had a sense of humour, so when he received an email from the HR manager that read "You're fired you bald bastard!" he knew it was a joke. He also had a good idea (he'd been on the receiving end of his son's pranks before) who had sent it, so he did nothing with it.

Again, though, the genius that the kid was, he didn't delete it from sent items.]

Yeah...you guessed it. The HR manager found the email and lodged a formal complaint. Due to his other pranks it ended up being a final written warning.

It was quite funny, though.

Job interview descended into sweary shouting match, candidate got the gig anyway

TonyJ

Similar experience

A good 15 or so years ago I drove a good few hours for a face to face interview.

On arriving, it was in the boardroom. The table was the usual sort of thing - very long and narrow.

There was one chair on "my" side, and the two guys each sat at opposite corners which meant that I could actually see both of them so when speaking to/looking at one I was almost turning my back to the other.

From the get-go it was incredibly bad-tempered. One would start to ask me a question for the other to interrupt them. Or I'd be mid answer and they'd interrupt me.

After a short while I'd had enough. I called an end to the interview, saying I had no idea what the hell they were playing at, but thank you for wasting a day of my time but I was done with it.

I hadn't even left the building when the agency called to say they liked me and wanted to offer me the job. I explained in robust terms precisely why I didn't want it.

Citrix reveals invitation-only 'Platform' license

TonyJ

Bye, Citrix

It was good while it lasted, but you've become ever more irrelevant in the modern world.

You were already expensive for what you offer over other options. I suspect this will force an awful lot of customers to look at alternatives.

Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks

TonyJ

HP

About a decade ago I did some work for HP at a defense firm.

The HP chap in charge was a classic sociopath. He had to micromanage everyone, was constantly rude and derogatory and liked to hold crucial information in his head then berate people for bothering him to try and get it.

And that's just some of his traits. He was genuinely obnoxious and a bully.

After a final bust up with him after he once again changed a process without telling me (proved I wasn't on the email chain - of course it was our fault for not sharing the information!) - I decided enough was enough. Life's too short and all that and there were better contracts, I decided not to renew.

A few weeks before, he called me to tell me (remembering I'd already said I wouldn't renew) to tell me that I wasn't getting renewed.... eh? I know.. I told you, remember?

About two or three months later he reached out to me to ask if I was looking for work because he had an opening in the team.

I always try not to burn bridges but in this case it was a real struggle and I might've laughed.

VMware takes a swing at Nutanix, Red Hat with KVM conversion tool

TonyJ

It would be nice

If they hadn't hosed the licensing/availability/partner relationships.

I've got projects stalled and serious discussions for alternative hypervisors.

What Microsoft's latest email breach says about this IT security heavyweight

TonyJ

Re: "Microsoft makes a good operating system"

"...The reality is that updates and security are inseparable unless we just don't give a damn. But, fundamentally, so is code quality to start with. If security were taken seriously at dev time, we wouldn't need so many darned 'updates'..."

I think that is only partly fair - some of the exploits we see are incredibly clever.

Where it is more than fair though is when we see the same kind of exploit being used over and over and over again.

TonyJ

Re: "Microsoft makes a good operating system"

Tried "New" Teams when it first came out. Had to go back to the "Old" Teams because if anyone started their camera or tried to share their screen it resulted in a black screen or frozen image on the screen.

Ok.. fair enough...it's still not really GA, so rolled back.

Then a shortish time later I was forced onto it.

About the only plus at that point was that the black/frozen screen seemed to have been fixed.

But synchronising statuses is right out of the window. I have it showing me/others out of office when the status is actually available. But of course, others will see available. Or maybe not. It's random.

Teams is an abomination. Updated outside of Office with little to no controls. Trying to do far too many things. Skype for Business did communications and tended to do it well. All they needed to do was add some form of persistent chat and it would be absolutely fine. But oh no...let's fuck around with OneDrive and SharePoint integrations and make a dogs dinner out of it.

Atari 400 makes a comeback in miniature form

TonyJ

Re: BBC B

What an incredibly odd thing to downvote.

TonyJ

Re: BBC B

Yeah I had a BBC B as well with the (I think it was) Opus floppy drive. The FDD was an unusual beast there in it had a built in RAM and you could copy the floppy into it - super quick loading once the copy was done. I remember benefiting from using it for Elite an awful lot back in the day

My home path was Atari 800XL that was returned to Dixons because it was faulty and replaced with an Acorn Electron then I saved my pocket money for a long time to buy a (then) relatively cheap BBC B.

Happy memories.

IBM Consulting is done playing around, orders immediate return to office

TonyJ

Re: Been remote working for years

I have said it before on here. I am back in a position where I am leading a team after many years where I didn't particularly want to.

My requirements: The work gets done - to a good standard and on time. I don't care where you do said work, or to a large extent, when it gets done, but my rules are always the same:

1 - You are available for necessary* calls

2 - I want to know if there is a problem before I get flak from the customer/stakeholders

3 - Do not take the piss. You won't get a second chance to that.

*By some definition of "necessary" - I think we all share the pain of unnecessary time on Teams calls.

TonyJ

Re: I thing it is OK

Rubbish.

I've worked from home for years now - either fully remote or partially. Probably close to 10 years.

Generally I am dealing with colleagues in wildly disparate locations - my current team of 6 are spread all around the UK and Europe.

We have a robust onboarding process that includes assigning a buddy to any new member, as well as I am available when needed. It works well.

On the current programme, it's large, convoluted complex. The customer is pan-European and is making moves into APAC. Again, we've never struggled to communicate, or to initiate new tasks.

This isn't about anything other than "I need to see the size of / micromanage / show I am good manager of my empire". And it's bollocks. I went into the office a few weeks before xmas because of some requirement for F2F. That was a 100+ mile drive in each direction to spend literally 7 minutes in a meeting room to talk about something that we could easily have done over Teams. I didn't even need to log in or find a spare desk.

This, like so many of the other big companies insisting on it is, in my personal opinion (mis)guided by two things over and above my comment earlier: The need to utilise the expensive property portfolio and a way to target people for the next round of layoffs...because the dinosaurs don't realise they're doing more harm than good to their business.

ValueLicensing tries to smack down Microsoft defenses in license reselling spat

TonyJ

Re: Mugs

"...Why, in 2023, is anyone still paying for software -- let alone putting up with stupid vendor-imposed limits on what they are allowed to do with it?

Everything you need is already available, for no cost; and with permission not only to make as many copies as you like, but to alter it as you think fit..."

Sorry, but this is such an oversimplified view of the world.

For an individual, then sure - there is almost always something available.

However, for a corporation, free to use is rarely free to deploy, manage, or support. On top of that, they will usually be using something that is industry-standard. And you want that company to be around in a few years' time as well (especially where it's business-critical).

There is a perfectly usable, free, alternative to Microsoft Office, that people can get along with fine at home* but there's also reasons why it's never kicked MS's dominance out in the corporate world: the rest of said corporate world already use it and you want compatibility with what they're sending over/you're sending over. There are untold numbers of plugins and add-ons that are in use by some of the other huge corporate vendors, etc etc.

And finally not everyone has the skills - or even the desire - to alter software.

And of course - by paying, you have someone you can hold to the fire when things go wrong, as well as someone to shout at. When that someone is an individual doing it in their spare time, you lose that ability. Again that may not mean a lot at home, but it means something in business.

*Yes I know some businesses use it - that wasn't really the point I was making though. It's largely horses for courses but free to procure rarely equates to free to support/use in business.

HCL modernizes Notes by adding 2023's hot new item ... mail merge?

TonyJ

Re: Oh dear

Not to mention that (admittedly, back in the 90's) configuring the Notes client was a royal pain in the arse - you needed a unique file for each one, if I remember correctly.

Ofcom proposes ban on UK telcos making 'inflation-linked' price hikes mid-contract

TonyJ

Re: Ofcom...

"...Should of visited the EE Community forums…

Basically, to gift 100GB each month, gift on the first day of your contract month, you will then be able to use your unlimited data allowance for the rest of the month…"

I did (*have*, not (*of*) visit them. At the time there was nothing I could find.

Since then, gifting it on the first day is precisely what I do.

TonyJ

Re: Hammer and sickle

"..While I understand that mid-contract price rises are inconvenient - there is an ability to terminate the contract without penalty when it happens..."

Yes and no.

Yes if the price rise is not in the contract when you took it out.

No if it is in the contract.

TonyJ

Re: Ofcom...

Yes and no.

I once had recourse to complain to the FCA - FSA as it was then.

They seriously kicked arse. Long story short, but it was Alliance and Leicester at the time. I was working in Europe, on a secure site. So secure that you couldn't take mobiles onto it so I was at work before they opened and still there when they closed and they refused to use their secure messaging service, saying (quote) that "emails aren't secure..." eh?

Anyway, once I had complained and still got nowhere I went to the FCA and they took no prisoners. Not only did I get the complaint sorted, a written apology but a pretty chunky sum of compensation - which I hadn't even asked for.

Ditto Ofgen. I've had to go to them twice over the past twenty or so years. The first time, we moved into our new build house just as one energy company sold to another (might've been Elf to EDF I think) and somehow our meter never existed on the system.

After regular emails and even letters, I went to ofgen. Amazingly within around a month, they found the meter. Ofgem wouldn't let them backdate more than that month because I'd been trying for over a year to get it resolved. I'd even put the money into a savings account, just in case, so that was a nice bonus. Oh and again, they made them pay a bit in compensation to boot.

I had to go to Ofgen about two years ago, but I can't recall why. I do know it was, once again, sorted pretty quickly in my favour.

I will say that the FCA are brutally on the side of a consumer. To the point it costs an FCA registered company the moment you make a complaint to the FCA. I worked for an insurance company around 15 years ago and they would do everything to avoid it because it was something like £250 just because they got a complaint.

TonyJ

"...I don't get the luxury of reducing my payment, they should not be able to do the reverse..."

Agreed! The whole point of a contract is both parties are aware of what it costs. Even a fixed % increase would be better than this bollocks.

It should act as a break clause. They can increase by say 2% each year. Or they can increase by inflation but the consumer has a right to cancel at that point at no penalty.

TonyJ

Ofcom...

I changed my contract with EE January this year, for a less expensive SIM only deal (I have only had SIM only for the better part of 15 years now)

At the same time, I added an extra SIM for my son. I was told, and read the details, that I could gift him any of my [unlimited] data up to a maximum of 100GB per month.

What they didn't say. What their own helpdesk didn't know, was that any data out of the first 100GB per month that I personally used, was taken off of the 100GB I could gift.

So, for example, if I used 10GB, I would only have 90GB left to gift...

I complained. I showed umpteen screen shots and emails that showed beyond all doubt that this wasn't made clear at any point nor was it clear in the contract (read: didn't exist in it).

I was told, repeatedly, by both the ombudsman and EE that it was very clear that I could only gift 100GB of data a month...note that wording. At no point was it clear that this would decrease.

So EE got away with (and I assume still are) misselling to customers and the ombudsman are ok with that. They completely failed to understand the core problem that I raised - either on purpose or simply because the were too stupid.

In fact, EE's own web pages STILL make no reference to this con: https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile/manage-use/pay-monthly/data-gifting

Oh and to top it off, the ombudsman allowed a terms and conditions document to be used as suitable evidence by EE that was dated more than 3 months *after* I signed my contract... not the one that was actually in force at the time.

No... I don't believe that any mobile company, or the ombudsman, give one toss about their customers and will use every possible method in their arsenal to rip us off. Just look at roaming charges, how long they kept charging people the same for a contract + phone despite the phone part being paid off, etc etc...

World's largest nuclear fusion reactor comes online in Japan

TonyJ

Re: Hope this goes well

Same. It seems we're always just on the cusp of success with it. Cannot wait (and hoping it's soon) we push over that into a fully operational reactor.

Musk tells advertisers to 'go f**k' themselves as $44B X gamble spirals into chaos

TonyJ

Re: Delusional narcissist

Yeah I mean why in the hell do Geese have TEETH ffs?

TonyJ

Re: Delusional narcissist

As someone born in Yorkshire, this amuses me no end. If anyone has actually listened, the "t'" sound that so many like to inject doesn't ever actually get enunciated in that way.

It's not "It's in t'bag" but more "It's in!<very short pause>bag"

AWS plays with Fire TV Cube, turns it into a thin client for cloudy desktops

TonyJ

Re: Overcrowded Niche?

To my point though - nothing you are doing there needs VDI. It can all be done by RDS (and/or a combination of web-based apps these days).

TonyJ

Re: Overcrowded Niche?

Honestly I've never been a fan of any kind of VDI based solution.

Does it have niche use cases? Sure.

But - you are taking the complexity of a workstation based OS and adding in the complexity of server backend, and usually need to provide performant storage and network backend on top of it.

I've yet to see much of anything that can be done in VDI that cannot be achieved in RDS (add Citrix if you have a need to but I don't think that's been the case for a long time now).

I even got to experiment with a couple of R/Pi based thin clients a few years ago. They were neat little devices but could struggle under load (think Skype for Business video calling) and the then management backend was clunky at best, but it was a good idea, just (my opinion) poorly recognised.

It felt like going back to the early WinCE Wyse days - they just weren't any use for anything other than the most basic of tasks. Mind you, it's also worth mentioning that I didn't spend much time trying to optimise them. Plus when you added the screen and keyboards on, they crept above the price of the aforementioned ThinOS machines and they just worked and worked well.

Again though - a late entrant to a crowded market that is saturated by solutions looking for problems to apply them to.

TonyJ

Overpriced

Back in 2017/18 I developed a Citrix solution for a well known retailer for their stores. Around 22,000 Dell (Wyse, as had been) ThinOS thin clients.

Everything designed to remain in long term support, given their penchance for updating every decade or so.

They were significantly cheaper than these devices and did everything needed and did it well.

But I was putting thin client devices with Win CE or early version of Linux in way back in the early-mid 2000's.

I think Amazon have missed the point of them - cheap and cheerful devices that are at a throwaway price. For this price you can just buy a cheap entry level laptop and turn it into a thin client for less.

Robocar tech biz sues Nvidia, claims stolen code shared in Teams meeting blunder

TonyJ

Re: Oh FFS.

I don't think you grasped the full picture. It wasn't the 5 second flash of it that was the issue. That flash of it, was evidence - as backed up by the audit - that the guy had stolen code wholesale and was reusing it. He was no longer working for the vendor at the time of the call, you see.

I hope you code better than you read articles... ;-)

Why have just one firewall when you can fire all the walls?

TonyJ

Weirdly I always used to struggle to type administrator properly. It was usually mangled to some variation of adminini... or such.

The other favourite of mine to mangle was GPUPDATE... and even now, typing this, it almost became GPUDPATE. A weirdly incorrect muscle memory.

Infosys co-founder calls for youth to work 70-hour weeks

TonyJ

Re: Bored people are just... boring.

Treadmills. Good for winter. Not so much in the warmer months. I do triathlons, so, probably fitter than you as well as brighter and better organised. In the summer months I love open water swimming but when I can't I also enjoy the countercurrent in the pool in my back garden.

I also SCUBA dive - I am a technical diver and use a CCR which takes a LOT of training to get to and is really interesting. It also takes me away to lovely parts of the world.

Don't know many scientists? Let's see now... my uncle has a PHd in biochemistry, one of my aunts was, until retiring, a pharmacist with a research background. My sister has a medical degree and works with geriatrics. My partner was a nurse prescriber, also with a degree and coincidentally, despite hailing from the other end of the country also specialised in geriatric mental decline. That's one of the reasons I actually know that no one says they wished the worked harder rather than making spurious, I know more than everyone, types of claims.

I personally didn't follow a research path but stopped at MSc level. My BSc was in electrical and electronics engineering. My dad worked in the food industry in research and development.

I can't think of any other immediate relatives that worked in the sciences but I bet if I dug into cousins etc, I'd find a few. I was just sticking with the ones I actually know and interact with.

And seeing as you seem to know me so well - let me explain. I rarely watch TV (it's a running joke between my friends and I that if someones asks "have any of you watched...?" it usually ends "except Tony, of course". I do love to read. I am not a huge fan of biographical works but I enjoy most other topics. I usually find the time to read at least a book a week.

I'm a single parent as well. One of my passions is cooking. I love to prepare and cook home made food and am trying to teach my youngest to learn the basics so he's self-sufficient.

I help my partner run her own mobile catering business. She is a regular at some fairly large festivals now (such as CarFest).

Due to geography and some of them having small kids, I don't get to see my friends face-to-face as often as I'd like but we manage a few times a year. One has started and sold many multi-million businesses, one is involved in politics. Two work in highly secure sites. One lives abroad. The conversations are usually heated, fun and very interesting.

So...to recap your points, I am fit, I am educated and well read, I have friends and a life, I know quite a few actual scientists and people who work with the elderly. I am surrounded by interesting people and my life doesn't revolve around work or telling the world how "alpha" I am.

Anyway. I am done giving you oxygen. Time to get back under your bridge.

TonyJ

Re: It does

"...Oh sorry... I forgot the rule. Let me correct my post.

"We're all equal"

Here you corrected..."

I never said that. It would be absurd. I am demonstrably better than many people at many things. Others are demonstrably better than I am at things.

What I, and others here understand is that you don't need to wave your dick around shouting how much better you think you are because you look stupidly arrogant and misinformed.

You have one perspective on work that is, from other points of view, warped. It works for you and for that I am happy for you. Some of us though have interests, friends, things - i.e. a life, that doesn't revolve around work. Nor does our work define us.

Shouting people down because their perspective is different is just...well immature.

You want to work yourself to an early grave, be my guest. You're supposedly an adult and frankly I couldn't give one flying fuck about you. You're some macho-bollocks-stranger on the internet. I hope you get to the end of it all, look back, and think it was worth it but the funny thing is, I don't ever recall anyone at the end of their lives, when asked about regrets, saying "Shit...I wish I'd worked longer hours!"

You're just coming over a a bell end. And when you're challenged, you double down. Yawn. It's Friday. I have plans, and, because I'm efficient enough to have everything sorted by 5.30pm I will thoroughly enjoy my weekend and return refreshed and ready to enjoy the working week ahead, come Monday.

TonyJ

Re: It does

Honestly... Tech Bro macho'ism on full display.

TonyJ

Re: It does

"...Depends on how fast you "get tired". I've managed to cram 1.5 to 2 weeks in all weeks for the last 35 years (and multiplied my salary by >25 in the process). Your call..."

My very first job paid peanuts. But I was happy to do it because it was the first rung on the ladder and I gained hugely useful experience from it.

Fast forwards to now - some 30+ years later and I earn 30x what I did back then.

In between then and now, I did the whole burning the candle at both ends as well. I would do customer visits for pre-sales work or installation work for 10 hours a day then spend 6-8 more doing documentation for e.g. the sites I'd done the pre-sales visits for.

It was tough but because I enjoyed it, I didn't mind so much.

Until that time came when I asked to be paid the going rate for the role and there was no money available... bearing in mind between my small team and me we were generating net profit of c£3m a year for the company.

I wasn't even paid market rate for an architect role, let alone a principal architect role.

So I decided right at that point in time that a) I wouldn't be taken for mug again. You pay me for the hours I am contracted for and you get the hours I am contracted for, and b) it was clearly time to move on. Which I did.

So now, years on from that, I find myself earning more than ever, with the ability to say no to people that want extra hours for nothing and have a wonderful work-life balance. And now I am back in charge of people again, it's an ethos I try to instil into them too.

And for those of you out there working all those crazy hours, consider this: if you work yourself to death, the company you work for will have your job advertised hours after you're gone. Your family will have that loss and grief forever.

TonyJ

Re: Ok, let's abuse the children!

Yeah I've worked with project managers from these outsourcers who weren't allowed to have MS Project because it cost the equivalent of €80 per month.

One particular chap was amazed that he got a whole desk to himself. In India he had to share one with two other people. Three if it was an end-of-row desk. He was terrified of a bad review from me because it would end with him being sacked and replaced. An unscrupulous person could have literally blackmailed the poor guy.

Oh and then there's the fact he spent just under a year in the UK but was given no expenses to help make that move.

And this greedy bastard wants to exploit people even more.

IBM to scrap 401(k) matching, offer something else instead

TonyJ

Why would...

...anyone want to work for IBM these days?

TonyJ

Re: They still do 401(k) matching? How quaint.

"...Some of that's down to the fact that we generally don't have a Dilbert work culture, and we have much higher holiday allowances, but some of it is down to pensions..."

Not sure that is true.

The UK is usually 20 + bank (public) holidays of which there are usually 8, so 28. Right now, I have 25+8, so 33.

What is the average US holiday allowance? I found this on Wikipedia:

There is no federal or state statutory minimum paid vacation or paid public holidays. Paid leave is at the discretion of the employers to their employees.[193][194] According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 77% of private employers offer paid vacation to their employees; full-time employees earn on average 10 vacation days after one year of service.[195] Similarly, 77% of private employers give their employees paid time off during public holidays, on average 8 holidays per year.[195][196] Some employers offer no vacation at all.[197] The average number of paid vacation days offered by private employers is 10 days after 1 year of service, 14 days after 5 years, 17 days after 10 years, and 20 days after 20 years.[195][198]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country

Microsoft calls time on Windows Insider MVP program

TonyJ

Re: a distinct lack of exciting features to test during the Windows 11 era

A lack of "Exciting features"?

No.

Wrong.

There a LOADS of them.

It's just that they precisely what no one asked for, or needed. Let's fuck around with context menus so that all the most common bits everyone needs/uses/has got used to over the last couple of decades are no longer where they've always been.

Let's make it so when you right-click the taskbar, the same is now true.

Let's make the default command-interpreter PowerShell so it loads slower. Even though most people want to run...commands, not PowerShell snippets.

And on and on.

All new. All exciting. All fresh!

/s

Down and out: Barclays Bank takes unplanned digital detox, customers not invited

TonyJ

Just moved away from Barclays

I moved to them from Smile in around 2011/2012.

I qualified for their Premier bank account, which at the time, came with some nice options that actually made it feel like a premier account such as a dedicated phone number that was usually answered within two or three rings by someone who already had your name and details. They were also UK-based.

You had access to a premier counter in branch which was handy when it was busy as you could basically bypass the inevitably rather long queue.

Then COVID lockdown happened and since then they've stripped everything that made them worth being with. If you dare try to call you get locked into a queueing system from hell. I once spent over 90 minutes on hold for their fraud department...their fraud department ffs!

They removed the direct-call to a dedicated team. They removed the dedicated counter, although even before that they were in the habit of telling you that you had to join the queue as they had no one available to spare to see you. They close my local branch every day now at 2pm - earlier on a weekend.

They force you down a chat route in the app and you get connected offshore to people who more often than not have no idea of what you're asking and when challenged go round in loops contradicting themselves, apologising and promising to do better as you are important to them.

When the chip in my debit card failed, I bit the bullet. Funnily enough the switch has just completed today, although I opened the account a couple of weeks ago (I waited to do the switch just to get a feel of things).

I chose Virgin Private banking simply because you get (shock horror!) a bank manager! Someone you are on first name terms with whom you can call to discuss any aspect of your account and even if he (in my case, it's a he) can't help, knows who can and will get them to call you back. And get this - I have his mobile number and can call or WhatsApp if necessary, even at weekends.

I was a bit taken aback to be honest. It feels new and fresh and yet it's just the way it used to be when I first opened my own adult account. Human interaction. Oh and if I want to see him, I can meet for a coffee or arrange to meet him in branch even outside of normal banking hours if needed.

Their app feels a bit less intuitive than the Barclays one but it's functional.

It will be interesting to see how their customer service holds up.

Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025

TonyJ

"...keyboards I swapped out in under 10 minutes. Un-clip the top bezel, 3 screws and a cable and off it came. Most other components (RAM, SSD, even the fan) could be changed in a few minutes as well..."

When I bought my current Dell laptop in early 2020 (and purely by chance beat the rush to get them and the massive delays/cost increases), it was from their factory refurb site so basically get what is configured.

The keyboard supplied was not backlit so I procured one that was.

And fuck me - it would have to be the first thing built into the chassis with everything built behind/under it. I literally had to strip out the entire guts of the thing to get at the keyboard and then rebuild it.

And all the time I was cursing under my breath at the stupidity of the design, asking myself precisely that - what happened to a couple/three screws and popping it off? Idiotic and I cannot see any justification for doing it. It doesn't add rigidity or prevent e.g. liquid ingress. It just makes life harder for a repair engineer.

TonyJ

Nah not anymore. You can buy SMD solder stations from Amazon for a few tens of pounds now. Couple it with a nice light-ring magnifying glass and you're sorted.

Even back in my day, surface mounted devices such as resistors and capacitors were tiny. Not <as> tiny, I grant you, but still tiny.

TonyJ

In the early-mid 1990's I used to repair laptops, desktop PC's and even servers down to component level.

Then over the late 1990's it slowly became to board-level and schematics weren't easily available, but in some cases if you had the skill you could still do component-level to a point.

But... the boards were sent back to the vendors (Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, IBM etc) and they repaired them and re-used them.

And it was the same with things like televisions - you had TV and Hi-Fi repair shops on every high street. I fixed my own and my folks' televisions multiple times over the years but these days they're throwaway units and it's frustrating as all hell because it's done primarily to get people to buy new rather than fix.

Give us the schematics and let us buy components so that those of us who can, have the chance to repair our own kit like we used to.

Scripted shortcut caused double-click disaster of sysadmin's own making

TonyJ

Is there anyone

With more than a few days' experience in IT that hasn't learned that kind of hard lesson?

My own was back in DOS and Netware days (thankfully also on a workstation and not a server):

Format c:

Are you sure?

Of course I am bloody sure! I know what I'm doing ffs!

Oh hang on...that was C: not D:

Ah crap.

Unity talks of price cap and fees for only largest games developers

TonyJ

Unity learning a simple, but hard lesson

Trust is hard to earn and *very* easy to lose.

This has done an inordinate amount of damage to them and their credibility and no matter how much backtracking they do, that trust is lost. And following it, will be a lot of customers.

IBM Software tells workers: Get back to the office three days a week

TonyJ

Or how about you pay a 10 hour working day? You already DON'T pay for commuting even when not working at home. It takes place outside of normal working hours. That's the point being made. Pay me six hours? Get six hours.

Do you realise that most people actually start work before 9am, then finish a bit later, because there is no rush to commute? Or at least that's the case in my team and no one forces them (quite the opposite, I try to get them to spend less time working and have a better work-life balance).

I get more done with fewer distractions - the amount of bullshit that fills a day in the office by people who just want to touch base as the pass - i.e. distract you to talk about their weekend/hobby/bbq/<insert other non-work related chat.

You come across as the real bitchy micromanager type that needs to "see" their minions at a desk to reinforce their perceived power, control and the size of their empire.

I won't return to an office. If a company insists, that's cool. I am sure they will find a suitable replacement.

I work to live. Not live to work.

Watt's the worst thing you can do to a datacenter? Failing to RTFM, electrically

TonyJ

Re: I I be a-goin there, I be-n't start from here

Hm... I wasn't getting a bench-top PSU vibe from my first reading, but rather a built in PSU.

A bench-top one would make more sense in this context though, you're right.

But I can't remember the ever seeing one that didn't have current AND voltage displays.

TonyJ

Re: I I be a-goin there, I be-n't start from here

But also why the hell have the option for double the power straight into a device that on the face of it, not only doesn't require the ability to switch to it, nor had any safety components to stop it self-destructing.

Even if it was an "off the shelf" PSU across different models - big sticker over the switch with a warning not to adjust it.

Microsoft makes some certification exams open book

TonyJ

Re: In the short term, it'll increase pass rates. In the long term, it'll make for a better exam.

I took - and was the first person outside of Citrix to pass, apparently* - the Metaframe XP exam whilst it was in beta. It's been a while, and I assume it's still the same, but back then you got the whole pool of questions and they were marked by a human.

One of the questions was "What?"

Worse, it was multiple choice with four check boxes. Each one had no text with it.

I have mentioned it here before but vendor certifications are there for companies to get their Gold or Platinum or <insert precious metal> partner level. You see it every year "Oh we need x number of people qualified to y certification for z vendor" at which point they cast around for some poor soul who they think can make up the numbers and shove them on a course (if they're "lucky"), or give them some study time and expect them to pass the exam(s) in question.

At any other time of the year? Training budget? What's that?

*I got a phone call from Citrix. They were very congratulatory. Other than that I got...nothing special. No gold card (lol MS), no t-shirt. Not even a mug. The company I worked for though, got a US$50 voucher towards sending someone on a course...

'Millions' of spammy emails with no opt-out? That'll cost you $650K, Experian

TonyJ

Re: These clowns are about as likeable as cancer

And worse - have you seen the snake oil that is their "credit boost"? Let us have access to your bank accounts and we will boost your credit score.

But... of course... the bit they don't like people to know is that beyond an automated "this person generally appears credit worthy" any lender will do their own scoring based on their own algorithms, so the score itself is bullshit.

Oh and of course, you can't get the "boost" unless you already subscribe... subscribe to what??

I am old enough to remember when, if you wanted say a mortgage, you went and spoke to your bank manager. But back then of course, we had things like bank branches and managers who knew their customers.

And the problem is, the very people that they prey on are the ones who are least likely to need or want their "services" to begin with. Bastards.

Lock-in to legacy code is a thing. Being locked in by legacy code is another thing entirely

TonyJ

Just remembered...

Not locked in, but in the mid/late 90's I was doing some work at an HSBC office.

I had a visitors pass for the duration as I was due to be there for about a week, from memory.

It was well run and I was given a bit of a tour - alarms, exits etc.

The site was a bit unusual - the main doors were through a branch so during the day you came and left via them but at night you had to go out via revolving doors as they closed the others to the branch.

It's a long time ago so my memory of it's a bit dim but as I recall the only pad for card reading only opened the doors to go through the branch not the revolving doors - though they were placed as though it'd do both.

Except it was two thin wires in the edge of the door frame that actually read the card.

So on the first evening I swiped and of course it went green because... well even though they were physically locked, I guess the maglocks still functioned on the branch doors, and I managed to blunder straight into a locked door at full chat. Much to the amusement of those around me before someone kindly pointed out how to actually make the doors operate.

TonyJ

Almost got locked in

I was working at what was to become a 6th form college in 2009.

As the new building wasn't ready (still a building site) a temporary server room was created in the existing building.

This included bars over the windows and metal shutters in front of the doors.

I'd been working late one evening* (not that late - maybe an hour) and as I opened the door to leave, a security guard almost jumped out of his skin. He was literally about to pull the shutter down for the night and had been told no one was in the room**

Had I been a mere few seconds later I'd have likely been spending the night in the server room.

*Pre-planned for a while as I wouldn't usually give more hours in the day without good reason

**Apparently he didn't have access to the room to be able to physically check, but one does wonder why he didn't knock on the door first just to be sure.

Techie's quick cure for a curious conflict caused a huge headache

TonyJ

Re: Win98 "Unable to browse the network"

Ahhhh WINS.

I can remember the battles of trying to remove WINS entries and them replicating back before you had a chance to get to the other consoles/connect to the other WINS servers.

I don't remember if they ever fixed that quirk.

Lenovo Thinkpad Z13 just has this certain Macbook Air about it...

TonyJ

Before I experiment

With putting any kind of image / OS onto a device, I always make sure I have chipset (if needed) and WiFi card drivers on the Windows boot media. It's a lesson learned once the hard way and not easily forgotten.

It just helps to avoid these issues.